Money and Finance # 59: Credit, Money, Management and Saving

Excercise
1) I already knew all of this and got a 100 on the quiz.
2) Yes, we have made budgets before and taught my sons to do this also. It is not hard. It helps you see where all your money is going and how much you spend or save each month.
3) I had not been to the TCDRS site before, so to learn of its exsistence was what was most useful to me. I will use it with my annual statement to better understand my retirement benefits.

Money and Finance #58: Banking, Budgeting and Spending

Excercise
1. My bank offers online banking for free. I have used online banking for years. It makes my life so much easier. My bank has us change our password often but not as often as my college email! Ha!. It also has a security picture and codeword with the picture and various questions if you forget your password. I always get out of the website when I am done and clear my cache after each online banking session.
2. I checked out several of budgeting tools listed above. I have similar services with Quicken which I use and with my American Express Card which I use for most of my purchases and both track how I spend my money with charts and graphs.
3. I already do most of the suggestions in the C.R. article. I like to one stop shop. So I could probably save some money by shopping Costco or Sam's but they ar so far away and I don't really like to shop. I could try florescent bulbs but they don't give off much light.

Pot Luck #57 TXT UL8R-Texting

Excercise: My texting is limited. The information from iHCPL would defintitely be of help if I decide to increase my texting. I texted my son (so as not to embarass him)after his first sky dive to see if he made it. His response was"I'm alive and well." I would have to improve my text lingo if I spent more time texting and Lingo 2 Word would certainly help me. I don't think you shold text and drive. I think laws should be passed forbiding this. Daily, I am behind someone just talking on their cell phones and it does impede their driving ability, including myself. My husband's company requires them to stop driving to use their cell phones. I was beside a woman in a large SUV with a cattleguard attached to the front(another thing I'm not quite sure about)who was texting. I would not have wanted to make contact with her.

Potluck#56: To Tweet of Not To Tweet...

1)I'm not a big celebrity watcher so I don't think I would use Celebrity Tweet but I guess a more starstruck person might. I prefer other ways to get my information rather than Twitip. I don't see myself using Tweet...I'm just not that into it.
2)I used Twitip to see how people used this site to market their art. This may be useful if it has a big audience such as ebay.
3)See above

Pot Luck #55: Getting the Most Out of Facebook

1. I already had a facebook account from the original iHCPL.
2. I searched for some old friends mostly by the search box. Sure hope they don't look me up.
3. I added the bumper sticker application to my facebook page...I think. I don't think I will stick with facebook. However I did get to see my son's pictures of his Japan trip.
I discovered there is alot more to this than I knew. Mostly about blocking people and hiding certain things from certain people.

Books, Readers and Beyond: #54 Social Networking Through Books

Exercise One: I have never been a member of a book club. I think I would rather join a book club in person rather than online.

Exercise Two: My first book club topic would be cookbooks. I went to the website Reading Group Choices and found a book titled Wine by the Book! by Laurie Foster or The Sipping Point: A Crash Course in Wine by the same author. Topics would include food pairings, general tips and awkward wine moments. On the same website I saw another book titled Music by the Book by Tom Moon and thought this would make a interesting book discussion. He also wrote 1000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die. It would be great fun to read the book and listen to all of the recordings and discuss the music.

Exercise Three: I searched for Robert Ludlum's Bourne Identity in Shelfari and in Goodreads. The ratings were the same but one person in Goodreads only gave it two stars rather than the five in the other two social networking sights. What I find surprising is that these sights exist at all. This is not the way I search for something to read.

Books, Readers and Beyond: #53 Finding Books Online

Exercise One: There were four bookstores that I found online close to our branch in Tomball. None of them had a website. Three of them sold just textbooks. The three were: Pritchards Textbooks in Magnolia, In & Out Textbooks right across the highway from the campus and The Book Attic in Tomball which deals in antique books. It is located on the main street in Tomball.
Exercise Two: I found a paperback version of Varjak Paw by S. F. Said for $6.99 on the Barnes and Noble website. Barnes and Noble did not have any audio books of the four childrens books I mentioned in the previous post. I searched HCPL for an ebook. I found none of these titles as an ebook. The only author that had ebooks was R. L. Stine and The Headless Ghost was not one of them.
Exercise Three: I attempted to download a book on my computer at work but I was not able to. Since training is a work requirement, I thought this might be possible. I attempted to download a book at home and was unable to install the software on my home PC. I would rather not download the additional software on my home computer anyway. I have read articles on the computer and prefer print. I like the idea of holding a book not a kindle.

Books,Readers and Beyond: # 52 What to Read

1. I searched Novelist Plus for a read alike to Robert Ludlum. Novelist Plus recommended several authors:Jack Higgins,Web Griffin,Vince Flynn,Ken Follett and Kyle Mills to name a few. Who Should I Read Next listed Jeff Harding, Allistar Maclain, Will Cuppy, Lawerence Block,Frederick Forsyth,Ian Fleming,Larry Bond,Ted Bell and Craig Thomas . I preferred Novelist Plus to Who Should I Read Next. I could not pull up a read alike at all on Library Booklists and Bibliographies. Fiction L Booklists came up with Richard Condon and John LeCarre. Some of these authors I have read but still none compare to Robert Ludlum who sadly died in 2001 but I am glad to say left several outlines for new ideas.
2. The two books I found for the fourth grade animal lover are:
Varjak Paw by author S.F. Said about a purebred pampered cat who leaves home guided by his legendary Mesopotomian ancestry, Jaal. Varkak Paw sets out to save his family from an evil gentile man who took their Contessa away.
Standing Up to Mr. O by author Claudia Mills tells about twelve year old Maggie comes to dread biology class because her favorite teacher insists she dissect a worm. This assignment awakens her to the issue of animal rights.
Two ghost story books for her thirteen year old brother are:
The Headless Ghost by R. L. Stine: Loving Hill House an enormous tourist attraction that is reputed to be haunted by the ghost of a 13 year old headless boy. Duane and Stephanie decide to search for the ghost's head and get the biggest scare of their lives.
Ghost Town: Seven Ghostly Stories by Joan Lowery Nixon: a collection of stories about eerie encounters in various ghost towns across the United States. Each story is accompanied by an afterword about the actual town on which the story is based.
3. To find read alikes for Dean Koontz I went first to Novelist Plus. Greg Bear's Darwin's Radio was recommended as the same suspense/horror genre and Dan Simmon's Summer of Night, both were said to have sympathetic characters in horrific situations. Who Should I Read next recommended Richard Layman's One Rainy Night and Charles Grant's The Millennium Quartet continuing the religious theme of good verses evil.
4.Novelist Plus lists the series title as Sons of the Lioness. The series titles are:
#1 Alanna:the First Adventure, #2 In the Hand of the Godess, #3 The Woman Who Rides like a Man and #4 Lioness Rampant. All continue Alanna the female warrior's journey of saving her country from disscention and hostile magic.